Quake III Arena: Information from Answers.com Mobile

Quake III Arena

Platform: IBM PC Compatible
Release Date: December 04, 1999
Genre: Shooter
Style: First-Person Shooter
Similar Games: Doom (Atari Jaguar), Duke Nukem 3D (game.com), Quake (Macintosh), Doom (IBM PC Compatible), Duke Nukem 3D (IBM PC Compatible), Quake (IBM PC Compatible), Rise of the Triad: Dark War (IBM PC Compatible), Doom 64 (Nintendo 64), Doom (Sega Genesis 32X), Doom (Sega Saturn), Duke Nukem 3D (Sega Saturn), Quake (Sega Saturn), Doom (PlayStation), Doom (3DO), Quake II (IBM PC Compatible), Doom (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), Quake (Nintendo 64), Half-Life (IBM PC Compatible), Unreal Tournament (IBM PC Compatible), Quake II (Nintendo 64), Quake II (PlayStation), Half-Life (Macintosh), Half-Life: Opposing Force (IBM PC Compatible), Unreal Tournament (Macintosh)

Game Description

The Arena Eternal was constructed by the mysterious Vadrigar, the enigmatic Arena Masters, far in the past. The arena was designed to satisfy the Vadrigar's insatiable hunger for carnage and battle. Now you, as a gladiator, must enter battle against the most powerful warriors in history who populate the Arena Eternal. More than 30 types of opponents, each with but a single thought -- survival -- awaits your appearance!

Within the arena, there is only one rule: kill or be killed. Fortunately, the Vadrigar, unwilling to accept death as a way out of combat, ensure that anyone who dies is immediately resurrected and thrust back into the fray. You must climb the ranks, winning your battles against increasingly powerful foes.

During gameplay, you have a wide variety of weapons from which to choose including several types of guns (machinegun, shotgun, plasma, lightning, rail and BFG), rocket and grenade launchers and bladed weapons. Three kinds of armor can be utilized, each uniquely affecting your armor rating, while more than a half-dozen power-ups dot the arena, providing enhanced combat abilities ranging from invisibility to flight.

Med-kits, personal teleporters, health bonuses and earned medals that count toward final battle score totals round out the many features of Quake III Arena. Single- as well as multiplayer action is offered, although the game is designed for multiplayer contests first and foremost. In single-player mode, the challenge is to defeat automated computer-controlled opponents at each level in order to "unlock" tougher levels.

During multiplayer action, five specific game types are available including all, free-for-all, tournament, team deathmatch and capture the flag. Many options allow full customization of multiplayer games and feature control over aspects such as 'bot skill levels, frag, capture and time limits, connection to dedicated servers, player list designation and friendly fire rules.

Other features in Quake III Arena include unique environmental hazards, properties, and items including fog of death, acceleration and bounce pads, gates, doors, lava, elevators and lifts, voids, water, pendulums, platforms and more. Twenty-six arena maps replete with traps, secrets, lighting nuances and varied surfaces await the intrepid warrior. Four additional capture the flag maps are available for practicing skills against other opponents.

Climbing atop the charred and dismembered corpses of those below, the victor of all the battles shall stand before Xaero, Lord of the Final Arena. Will that victorious warrior be you?

~ Michael L. House, All Game Guide

Roots & Influences

First person shooters have taken great steps, and evolved from the Castle Wolfenstein of yesterday through Doom and Quake to present day Quake III Arena.

The influence of muliplayer internet play is primarily credited to the original Quake which spawned such popular add-ons as Capture the Flag, and Team Fortress. The popularity of such multiplayer titles, coupled with the increasing speed capabilities of personal internet access made the progression to a title like Quake III Arena a predictable one.

~ Chris Couper, All Game Guide

Review: Overall

Quake III Arena is the game all the loyal id Software worshippers and multi-player fanatics have been yammering for. From the early Internet test versions until the final retail version, this title has been hyped as the online savior for years. And can we ever forget the uproar caused when lead programmer John Carmack announced that the single-player game would only emulate multi-player experiences? Naturally, the small development house had a lot riding on this game, most importantly their reputation.

But I'll cut to the chase because I realize all you care about is whether or not this game lives up to the hype or falls flat on its face in utter failure. While the latter condition is not applicable, it's not the height of online gaming nor is it an original title. It also feels rushed. Because Epic Games' Unreal Tournament also focuses on Internet play, id Software obviously wanted to get their game on the market.

First, the single-player game is nothing more than a progressive romp through 22 deathmatch maps. Spanning seven difficulty tiers, your opponents come in the form of bots specifically created for the sake of deathmatch play. The objective is to win each map by hitting the frag limit first; some maps are one-on-one rounds while others feature a full field of opponents. Naturally, there's little to no depth found within the single-player game but it is useful in learning map layouts and getting accustomed to the whole deathmatch experience.

Awards are earned by executing skillful shots and performing in a superior manor. Though they have no effect on gameplay, awards come in the form of multiple kills within a brief amount of time, accuracy, consecutive hits, perfect one-on-one matches and humiliations.

In addition to the single-player game, a skirmish mode gives the player access to various modes including Team Deathmatch, Free for All, Tournament and the long time multi-player staple, Capture the Flag (with four additional maps). Free for All is the standard deathmatch whereas Team Deathmatch features two teams in a heated competition for the most frags. The Tournament feature is simply a Rocket Arena II (a popular Quake II modification) inspired one-on-one match-up while Capture the Flag is self-explanatory.

It is important to mention the gameplay as Quake III Arena feels solid and the action is VERY fast. At times, it feels like a souped-up version of the original Quake, something many online gamers have been craving for years. The controls are ultra-responsive with an incredibly cohesive feel -- in a word, amazing.

Graphically, Quake III Arena is beautiful. Never before has the PC market seen such incredible visuals, unparalleled lighting and weapon effects, curved surfaces and silky smooth textures. Additionally, it ships with a wide variety of player models each uniquely detailed in supreme fashion. But those flashy graphics come with a hefty price tag...

If you're looking to flawlessly run this game with all the bells and whistles, you'd better have a top-notch accelerator card with at least a top-of-the-line Pentium II processor and 128 megabytes of RAM. Anything less will result in a choppy, lackluster performance that requires massive graphical and engine tweaking. Fortunately, the Q3 configuration file and in-game menu system gives players a good amount of tweaking options.

Design wise, Quake III Arena is a mixed bag. Out of the 26 deathmatch and Capture the Flag levels, there's only a handful of memorable maps; many seem like half-hearted attempts at best. While the overall look is gorgeous, the four futuristic base-type maps feature high r-speeds (which effect your overall frames per second) with ugly textures and bland design. Additionally, the four void maps feature boring black backdrops with floating platforms -- there's little innovation or inspiration here.

Great maps come in the form in the shape of Quake inspired layouts complete with satanic imagery and upside-down crosses that swing back and forth. There's even a statue of Jesus Christ mounted on the wall. Its almost as if the graphic designers took a field trip into Hell and realistically designed what they had seen. Unfortunately, this inspiration is vacantly distributed with the overall level design being somewhat mediocre, especially when you realize who put this game out.

Additionally, the weapons are average at best. Upon spawning into a map, your character starts with the machine gun and a pummeling razor blade Gauntlet that acts as the humiliation device. Then you've got a shotgun with a laser scope, a Plasma Gun that shoots out bluish purple blasts, the grenade and rocket launchers, a taser-like Lightning Gun, the accurate Rail Gun and the obligatory BFG-10k.

The BFG-10k has been completely overhauled as an incredibly fast rocket launcher with explosive splash damage. This combined with the actual rocket launcher and Plasma Gun serve as the game's only highlights. Sure it's fun to go around pummeling people with the Gauntlet but it's very hard to do. The shotgun doesn't have much of a feel to it and the grenade launcher is mediocre; you can't even use hand-grenades!

With all this out of the way, you've got to keep in mind that Quake III Arena's intention is to be played online with actual opponents. In my experiences so far, I've found the Internet support to be great with a multitude of public servers. Unfortunately, my 56k modem doesn't seem to cut it anymore; I've experienced lots of packet loss, high pings (such is the case with many dial-up users) and terminated connections. It almost seems geared to those who can afford or have access to Cable Modems, ISDN lines, or DSL.

Though Quake III Arena out of the box is mediocre at best, I'm going to look at the big picture and tap into this game's potential and possible future. If you consider Quake and Quake II's performance out of the box, it wasn't exactly up to par. id Software constantly releases patches that improve graphics and significantly enhance the Internet server clients. Carmack wants this game to excel above all others and he'll ensure it reaches that level some day.

Anyone who's spent time with Quake II online knows there are a wealth of modification developers that release their own takes on gameplay. The already mentioned Rocket Arena II was widely regarded as the best "mod" released for that game; Team Reaction, with renowned modification programmer Dave Wallin, has produced a variety of popular, award winning games including Jailbreak, Gloom and Qpong while Weapons Factory Software produced the acclaimed and widely accepted Weapons Factory mod. Mod developers are already planning on releasing exciting new things for Quake III Arena.

So with that in mind, it's easy to look over Quake III Arena's faults. Though the single-player game is far from substantial with some poorly designed maps, a lack of gameplay options and originality, average weapons and inadequate netcode, the good things will come to those who can wait. With a few modifications and patches, this will have a very long hard-drive life...that is until the next big thing comes along.